SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

Kattar Sonr
says gives en Iortrseffelig mening" 16 Bugge wants to
explain both the nickname kpttr and the kattar sonr of
HH I by reference to the name of the legendary Irish king,
Carpre Caitchenn, whose nickname means "cat-head";
Bugge also refers to kpttr as a heiti for giants. The
comparison with Irish is not convincing. But Bugge is
right to point out that the sons of Snorri gotH with their
cat-names were living at just about the time when the
Helgi poem was composed.t ? And the phrase kattar sonr
in the poem must have caught on. It occurs again in the
Stafs pattr: and Stufr is a son of Partir kQttr.l 8
A central element in this tale is a conversation between
King Harald Sigurosson inn haroraoi and the poet Stufr inn
blindi in which they tease each other on account of the
nicknames their fathers had: Siguror syr "pig" and
Partir kpttr "cat". The king first asks his name and he
replies "Stufr": this seems a curious name to the king-it
means "stump" - and he goes on to ask whose son he is.
Stiifr answers: Ek em kattar sun. The king asks which
kind of cat his father had been. Stufr told him to guess
and laughed, and when the king asked him why he
laughed, he told him again to guess the reason. The king
replied that he thought Stufr laughed because it had
occurred to him to ask "which kind of pig my father had
been" After this they became good friends and Stiifr
had to entertain the king by reciting poems. This he did
late into the night but only by reciting flokkar, although
he said afterwards that he knew just as many drapur.
Did Stiifr know the Helgi poem, and did the phrase
kattar sonr come from there? King Harald was himself
a poet and could have known the Helgi lay as well as
Stufr. Sophus Bugge thought HH I was composed for
Canute the Great in England.v" Alexander Bugge, on the
r e De gamle Eddadigte (1932), 180.
17 Heige-digtene (1896), 46-7.
"Stufs pattr P6roarsonar is preserved in two versions, the longer as all
independent tale. The two are printed side by side in Einar 61. Sveinsson,
Laxdcela saga (Islenzk fornrit v, 1934), 280-90.
" Helge-digtene (1896), 187.